Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang won both the Jupiter Award and the Hugo Award for best novel. Wilhelm was only the second woman to win the Hugo for best novel, following Ursula K. Le Guin, who won the honor in 1970 and 1975.
Wilhelm’s novel is a credible multigeneration epic that confronts technology and conformity with art and nature. It creates empathy for both sides of the conflict.
Wilhelm convincingly imagines both the comforts and the anxieties of life as a clone. Citing research on the behavior of twins, she portrays the comfort of telepathic empathy with five siblings who unselfishly share all experiences and feelings, from physical pain to sexual excitement. Women control ritual seduction: A female clone group tags a male group for bisexual pleasure. Idolizing conformity, the clones never experience isolation, misunderstanding, or strong emotion. They resent the rare individuals who cherish their privacy because that behavior rejects the clones’ security and so appears insane.
Artists, on the other hand, require rooms of their own, as well as time and freedom to work out original ideas. Like Le Guin, Wilhelm is one of the first science-fiction writers to portray futuristic art. She envisions painting and sculpture as representational and narrative fiction as imitating the didactic folktale. Young clones, however, are incapable of critical thinking, so they cannot recognize art. To them a powerful snow...
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